No more ace to play
by Edelwyn
Summary: This is a vignette focusing on Éowyn's feelings as she realizes she has been left behind once again in ROTK. Based on Abba's The Winner takes it all - pretty self-explanatory, it mirrors her numb resignation mingled with despair.


_**A/N: **_This is my very first LOTR fanfic, and the first piece of writing in English I've ever done, come to that:D Éowyn's character has always fascinated me in Tolkien's trilogy and although I love the way she is portrayed in the movies I was really angry at PJackson for dismissing her from the end of ROTK. So this would be my small tribute to her character !

It's a short vignette that I wrote in an hour, listening to _The Winner Takes It All. _Abba's one of my favorite band and this song struck me a particularly fit to capture Éowyn's thoughts and feelings after Aragorn leaves the camp. It tries to convey the rush of emotions she felt, and the ambiguous, bitter feeling of resignation mixed with despair that overwhelmed her.

the first _she_ refers to Arwen of course...

Please, let me know what you think!

I might add more vignettes to this, depending on my inspiration. But Abba's songs may inspire me to write more :D

* * *

_I've played all my cards, _

_and that's what you've done too_

_nothing more to say, no more ace to play. _

_The winner takes it all_. So _she_ had won. He had rejected her. She had lost the battle, a battle she didn't even think she had entered. She had not fought – as usual, just lost. She had not experienced the fight, nor the surge to defend herself – she was left with the broken pieces of her defeat to mend. He had rejected her, it was simple and plain. And it had all gone so quickly – a few steps, a few rash, hurried words spoken in the dead of the night, and silence. The minute his fingers had stopped fidgeting with the saddle she knew it. She had almost immediately regretted her words – she would have swallowed them back and kept them hidden, like a precious treasure whose glittering image would have brightened her long years of solitude. The hopes, the dreams she had dared to nurture, secretly; the secret dreams which had softened her face and brought a glimmer of light in her cold eyes – were all gone with the wind.

She took a few steps back, barely breathing. What did it matter now? He was leaving – he was speaking. _It is but a shadow and a thought that you love_. A shadow and a thought – the very counterparts of her dreams and hopes, she thought with bitterness.

_Rules must be obeyed. _

He had left, leaving her behind. The game was on again; she was left behind, as usual. She would abide by his decision – maybe he had been right, in the end. _No self confidence_. He had passed in her life, like a vision of the past shrouded in the dead glory of his ancestors long gone; what part of her would he have loved? She was cold; she was the shieldmaiden of Rohan, and her fate was utter solitude and this creeping coldness that would never leave her, a rigidness that she had come to adotp as a second nature, years ago. He would be crowned King – should this age of the world end, and all things come to their rightful conclusion – and he would marry the Elven Princess he had loved for more than forty decades, this daughter of the Evening Star he had met when she, the White Lady, had not even been born. Things were back in their place; she had no part in this new game, the winner took it all. She was cast away from the cheerful festivities, the hidden blushes and the glory of the return of the king. Pride, honor and a blissful union would be _their_ fate, not _hers._ She tought he had could have offered her a home, the promise of a new life she could have clung to. Where did she belong? She was part of her people, who loved her and would have claimed her fiercely as one of them. What would have become of the Shieldmaiden, had she become the Queen? She understood his rejection, the cold words he had spoken. Nothing of this had made sense – the loser had to fall, and fall she would.

A cold sun was rising, bringing the muffled noises of the camp with it. She would return to Edoras, where the Golden Seat of the King awaited her, the Shieldmaiden of her people. However imposing the carved Throne was, the path that led to her unveiled future seemed to be ruhtlessly shrinking. Empty days on end, cold nights to follow the day and the wind, the wind that would rustle her hair, turning their golden shade to a virgin white.

_Rules would be obeyed. _

She had risked it all when she had accompanied the men there. For she knew that there would be no coming back; should some unexpected twist of fate tear her blurred dreams apart. And the veil of her hopes had been lifted - _now, it was all history_. She would be left behind, empty-handed and with nothing to fight this creeping coldness that had stilled her heart. He could have broken the cursed spell, could have set her free, showing her a way out of the intricate maze of poisonous thoughts she had lost herself in – but their paths should not have crossed.

_It was simple and plain – why should I complain?_

No. No. She would not live to see those long, empty days slowly eating her alive, the walls of her bower implacably closing in around her. Solitude shrouded her – and she would tear the cursed shroud apart. An imperative desire to run now possessed her, consuming her. She would ride to her fall, she seek it and finally face it. She would fight a battle that she was doomed to lose but she would strike deadly blow before her unescapable blows. She would fight and she would lose. The loser had to fall, and she had lost, and she would fall. Swiftly, and coldly, as she had lived, she would die, falling into emptiness and oblivion. She would seek glory and die, belying the words that were dancing in her mind: she would not abide by the law nor the gods. But she had played by the rules; and she would fall – she had lost.


End file.
